


An Unhealthy Purge (working title)

by stupidityeatsme



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Dreamatorium, Drug Use, Drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 20:44:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19303501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidityeatsme/pseuds/stupidityeatsme
Summary: Abed was no stranger to using the Dreamatorium as a way to vent out all of his horrible anxieties, to force himself through all of them in order to purge his system. It could really help with pent up pain or  feelings of sadness or anger or fear. But he knew how to tell what was a healthy purge and what just made things worse. But he saw Annie, crying and clearly torturing herself, and he couldn't stand to watch it any longer.





	An Unhealthy Purge (working title)

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I haven't written a fanfiction in probably four years. I've never written a Community fanfiction. Also I wrote this at 3 a.m., so please bear with me.

It was approximately 2:24 in the morning when Abed awoke to weird sounds coming from the other room. At first, he wasn't sure what it was. Weird, hitched breathing. Coughing. Maybe even a little bit of whining. But after precisely one minute of trying to decipher these sounds, he understood that what he was hearing was sobbing. Quietly alarmed, he checked to see if Troy was awake. He peaked below him to see that his best friend was still in the bunk bed, sleeping quite soundly. At first he wondered why Troy wasn't woken up by the strange crying sounds, but remembered how heavy of a sleeper he was. Now knowing that it wasn't Troy, he figured that it must be Annie. With this information in mind, he climbed out of his bed and went to investigate.

He crawled out of the blanket fort and made his way to Annie's room, only to hear that the crying was not coming from her room but from the other side of the apartment. Just to be sure, he checked in her room, and just as he suspected, Annie was no where to be found. This meant that Annie must be in the Dreamatorium. Abed found that a little bit strange - Annie had only played in the Dreamatorium with him, and it was always a hassle to get her to play in the first place. She was always too busy being grounded in reality. Of course, neither Abed nor Troy complained about this. With the two of them being as flighty as they were, they needed someone there to keep them sane. Plus, Troy was a more enthusiastic playmate than Annie anyway. 

Without knocking, Abed opened the door. At first he felt a little bit rude for interrupting her simulation, but he was too concerned. The sounds of her crying were disconcerting, and he could hear a clear difference from her fake crying, so he knew it was real. He opened the door and was met with the sight of Annie, sprawled out on the ground, lying on her back with her limbs hanging loosely around her like some sort of flaccid starfish. She was in her pajamas, long fluffy pink pants and a white t-shirt. Her face was stripped of all of its makeup and instead was stained with tears that still flowed rapidly out of her face. Her eyes were squinted tightly, presumably to stop the tears, or perhaps to try and squeeze them all out at once. Either way, she looked like a disaster.

"Annie?" Abed spoke barely above a whisper.

Annie's eyes shot open wide and she gasped audibly. "Pause simulation!" She practically screeched, and sat up. She looked frantic for a good several moments, almost scared. And then, she calmed her breathing, pulled herself together and let out a long, deep sigh. She pulled her knees up to her chest and finally looked Abed in the eyes.

"You must've been simulating something pretty intense to have a reaction like that," Abed said when he thought she was calm enough to talk. He slipped his way into the door and closed it behind him.

She once again avoided his gaze. "What?" She seemed distracted. But at the same time, completely focused. Just not on Abed.

He sat down across from her, cross-legged. "Your simulation. It made you cry," he said a bit more bluntly.

All at once, a wave of exhaustion overtook Annie's appearance. She went from looking anxiety-ridden to sleep-deprived in a matter of two seconds. "Oh. No. Well, I guess. I don't know."

"What were you simulating?" He asked her. He tried to be as subtle as possible with his concern for her.

"Nothing," she whispered.

"You're acting weird," he said finally. "You seemed really paranoid when I came in here, breathing heavy and crying loudly and screaming to pause your simulation when I came in. As far as I know, you don't have any anxiety disorders. But now, suddenly, you're all tucked inside of yourself and quiet. And you've been crying softly, too. As far as I know, you don't have any depression disorders. Which means that this isn't caused by your mental flaws, but by something external."

"I don't understand," Annie blinked a few times. She seemed far away from him, like she was still in her simulation. And then she shut her eyes tightly and held her head in her hands. "Sorry, I just have the worst headache right now."

Abed nodded, happy to have figured it out, but sad about the reality of what that meant. "Those are side effects of drug use."

"What?" Now she blinked and looked at him in the eyes. Her eyes were shiny and blue and wide. It was the face she used in urgent situations, not like their wacky misadventures but the real misfortunes. Her whole face was pale but her cheeks stayed rosy and it really was one of the most saddening faces Abed had ever seen.

"Annie," Abed began, but didn't know what else to say. He knew Annie had a past with drugs. He also thought that she had left that past far behind her, and maybe she did, but maybe it came back to haunt her. He searched his mind for something to say, something encouraging of inspiring, but he came up short. He tried to think like Jeff, what he would say to her, but he figured Jeff would be just as inefficient in the situation as he was. He tried to think of a movie, any movie, that dealt with relapse, but this was real life, and his friend needed him, not some character.

Annie stared sadly at one of the yellow lines of the Dreamatorium, and they sat in silence for a full three minutes. "I was simulating the study room," she offered eventually. Her voice was so strained, nothing like her normal girly sing-song voice.

"What was happening in the study room?" He encouraged. But Annie didn't reply, she just went back to her aimless staring.

And then, she whispered just barely loud enough to hear. "Render environment: study room." Around them, the room shifted. They found themselves not in the dark Dreamatorium, but now in the well-lit Greendale library study room. But it was eerily empty aside from Annie, who was herself but now with a dry face and light makeup and a casual little dress with a cardigan and tights. Abed was not simulated as any character in her scenario, but was rather a fly on the wall watching the scene happen before him.

Then in walked Jeff, as a non-playable character in the story, carrying a thick, black three-ringed binder in his left hand and a knife in his right. Annie sat on the floor next to the table in the same way that she sat in real life, curled up as small as possible. Only now she was staring up at the all too confident Jeff, who was smirking as he towered over her.

"Annie," he said, his voice too low and too raspy. "I have something for you." He dropped the binder in front of her. It slammed loudly and she jumped. With a half-hearted chuckle, he tossed the knife onto the carpet next to the binder, and turned to walk out. Slowly, Annie reached for the binder and opened it. Inside, the title paper read in big bold letters "ANNIE'S FLAWS." Underneath the title paper was a stack of hundreds, maybe thousands, of papers the same size as that one. Carefully, she fingered the first page, daring herself to turn it. Instead, she ripped the paper out entirely and revealed the second page. The font was so small that Abed couldn't see it, even if he, as a fly, could fly up really close to it to try and see. But whatever it said, it caused Annie clear distressed, because she began hyperventilating and crying again.

Abed was no stranger to using the Dreamatorium as a way to vent out all of his horrible anxieties, to force himself through all of them in order to purge his system. It could really help with pent up pain or feelings of sadness or anger or fear. But he knew how to tell what was a healthy purge and what just made things worse. But he saw Annie, crying and clearly torturing herself, and he couldn't stand to watch it any longer.

"Pause simulation," he said.

The room went back to the dark reality. Clearly angry, Annie glared at him. "Why?" she asked, almost pained.

"You were hurting yourself," he said. "Tell me, did the simulation cause the drugs or did the drugs cause the simulation?"

Annie crossed her arms and refused to answer.

"Alright then. Render simulation: study room. Annie and Jeff."

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I should probably clarify that I have never taken Adderall, neither for medical nor recreational use. Frankly, I just googled the side effects and hoped to get things right.
> 
> I do plan on writing a chapter 2 for this, but it's hard to say if I'll have the time or energy. And I do plan on making the whole drug thing a little bit more relevant to the rest of the plot.


End file.
